


Moon Over You

by twisted_dendrites



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Crush, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Ouija, Puppy Love, Secret Crush, Tarot, Unresolved Romantic Tension, ZADF, ZaDr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28623636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twisted_dendrites/pseuds/twisted_dendrites
Summary: Zim is always counting his chickens before they hatch...he has a new plan regarding the Dib. What is the plan? What is his intended goal? It's anyone's guess.Meanwhile, Dib is just going through his usual routine. Investigate the paranormal. Investigate Zim. Wait a minute...what does tarot have to do with any of this?Maybe they'll both have to come to terms with their secret crushes on one another. Or maybe Gir will release an album that goes double platinum. Both scenarios seem equally as likely.
Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	Moon Over You

**Author's Note:**

> I am no expert on tarot, don’t come for me.

The magnificent new plan had been set into motion, and all Zim had to do was wait to reap the inevitably sweet rewards that were sure to yield from his unrelenting genius. It had all been so simple too, really, the skoolchildren had eaten up his lies like starved...starving...thingies...(like they were starved! HA! Yes...). Zim had only needed to plant an anonymous note in a certain locker, and even before lunch he had heard buzzing throughout the ranks of his smelly peers—Jessica told Zita who told the Letter M who told Torque who told Chunk who told Rob...and so on and so on.

Over the next few days, Zim closely monitored the situation (not that he needed to, because everything went perfectly as he planned, without fail, obviously). The trap was set. The bait was out there. And once his target moved into place...!

Eh, those details (clearly unimportant ones) could be worked out later.

-

On Thursday morning during class, Dib was in line for the pencil sharpener behind Spoo and Tae. The pair were whispering to each other just quiet enough as to not raise the ire of Ms. Bitters, though the fact that there were four students at the pencil sharpener had not escaped her notice. Every time she shot a suspicious glare their way from her place at the blackboard, Dib felt shivers and nausea wash over him. After years of her teaching his classes, he would have thought she might have lost some of her menace. Unfortunately, Dib still felt very much threatened by her harsh stares.

He was doing his best to avoid her pernicious eyes and had just about decided to sit back down and forget about writing anything for the rest of the day. Before he took a step out of line, his brain honed in on the words "haunted" and "ghosts."

Without pausing to use better judgment, Dib instinctively leaned forward in hopes of hearing more. Tae, who was in line directly in front of Dib, visibly recoiled from the class weirdo which caused Spoo to giggle. The faint expression of joy provoked a laser sharp squint from Ms. Bitters, and the dark cloud of wrath swirling at her feet condensed into an acid tone that ordered them all back to their seats.

Once Dib was firmly behind the safety of his rickety wooden desk, which was comprised of equal parts splinters and etched swear words, he stole a glance at Zim. The weird little alien had his head down, weird violet eyes seemingly glued to his notebook as he ostensibly scribbled down notes of Ms. Bitters' lecturing. It was all too perfect, and Dib knew that he was just assuming the image of a diligent student.

There wasn't a minute of the day that the both of them weren't aware of each other's every move. Being reprimanded by their arguably demonic teacher was an opportunity that neither would pass up to taunt and ridicule the other. Zim, especially, couldn't keep his mouth shut, and should have gladly taken the chance to loudly mock Dib—even if his jeering led to his own shadowy consequences.

Thoughts of the possible "haunted house" drifted from Dib's mind the longer he stared at Zim. The invader surely felt Dib's eyes on him, yet still he pretended to care about the lesson. Dib narrowed his eyes, waiting for Zim to at least look up and make a face at him or something!

This wasn't a part of their dynamic—Zim was breaking the rules. A heated wave of annoyance surged through Dib as he finally turned his attention to his own notebook. His tipless pencil lay flat against a mostly blank page, and he slouched back into his chair, feeling put out.

Zim was acting normal, which meant he was up to something strange. Dib would find out what he was up to and put a stop to whatever was taking up all his attention.

Not that—not that Dib _wanted_ his attention, because of course he didn't!

-

Zim somehow managed to elude Dib for the rest of the day and a good part of the next. Dib was equal parts torn over whether he should dramatically confront Zim in view of the whole class as he usually did, or wait for Zim to inevitably succumb to the urge to loudly brag about his latest screwball idea. Usually, Dib would try both, with the confrontation coming first and then the period of waiting second. This time, however; he was a little distracted by the whispers going around skool about a possible ghost house. He needed more information about that too.

Of the students that were willing to be seen talking to him, none had any information about the spooky rumors other than what he already knew. When it came to lunch time, Dib took his usual seat across from Gaz and sighed dramatically.

Gaz showed no sign of even acknowledging his existence.

Dib got up, sat down more forcefully in the dented metal folding chair, and then sighed again even louder.

Gaz was unmoved.

The chair under him collapsed.

Fifteen minutes later, and after getting screamed at by a lunch lady who looked suspiciously like a snowman—if the snowman was actually made of ground beef and had spatulas for arms—Dib carefully sat down in the new chair that had been scrounged up from the Dimension of Miracles that existed under the busted deep fryer in the kitchen.

"Have a nice fall?" Gaz snickered, "By the way, there's only five minutes left for lunch. I ate your cookie."

After rolling his eyes, Dib glanced at his tray, which was indeed now missing the only appetizing component that had been there before he had left for his quest to find a new chair. He glared at the remaining soggy-bread-ball thing before picking it up and cramming half of it in his mouth.

"Did Zim do anything while I was gone?" Dib asked, not caring that he was talking with his mouth full.

Gaz's shoulder twitched in an imperceptible shrug. "I'm not your boyfriend's babysitter."

Dib searched across the cafeteria tables to where he knew Zim would be sitting, alone. He was sitting with his hands crossed in his lap. On the table, his tray was untouched. He seemed to be whistling a jaunty tune which came to an abrupt halt when another classmate walked by, and he stuffed his napkin in his mouth and swallowed it whole. His subsequent smile at the passing student was a pitiful attempt to appear normal, but other than the absurdity of it all, Dib couldn't discern anything immediately worth alarm.

Dib's head whipped back around to Gaz as he fully processed her words.

"Hey, wait a minute! He's not—"

"Whatever." Gaz was uninterested in his protests.

Though Dib could probably try to find it in himself to be more defensive, ultimately he felt it would be best to just change the subject and ignore all the words of refute that piled up in the back of his throat like a full-on highway-closing traffic jam.

"Um." He cleared his throat, then took off his glasses to wipe them on his shirt. The bottoms may have gotten a little fogged for absolutely no reason at all. "Um, anyway..."

Sounds of laser guns and 8-bit music encouraged him to get a grip.

"Um, anyway, have you heard of this 'haunted house' that everyone's been whispering about?" he asked finally.

"You mean the thing about 1231 MacGuffin Lane?" Gaz responded, "I'm surprised you heard about it."

"Overheard about it, more like," Dib muttered under his breath. He didn't need to dwell on the subject. They both knew he was not the most popular and maybe the most unapproachable.

Dib reviewed his mental map of the city. If he was thinking of the correct street, it ran almost directly next to the city cesspool. There were quite a few abandoned houses over there, ever since the Great Overflowing of '02. It would make sense that at least some of the property over there was infested with tortured souls.

"Hmmm...well it is a Friday. I could stay out pretty late looking for ghosts since there's no skool tomorrow," Dib mused out loud to himself.

He proceeded to choke down the rest of his lumpish meal before the bell could ring.

-

"GIR! My ingenious plan is working. It is only a matter of time before phase two shall commence. Fetch me the googly eyes and the peanut butter! There are still preparations to be made."

An uncharacteristic silence resounded throughout the invader’s home base. Zim looked up from the bucket of fake spiders that he had been fashioning out of yarn to confirm that his robotic companion was in fact not present at the moment.

“He must have moved on to phase two early…” Zim muttered to himself, returning to his woolly arachnids. “COMPUTER!”

With as much ennui as an operating system could muster (which, in the age of Crapple and Macrohard, was enough to gag a Pencey Prep fencing team captain) the computer managed to drone out an uninspired, “What?”

Zim paused in his crafting to utter a full bodied maniacal laugh which would have any sentient piece of hardware quaking to its solid state drive. Computer was used to Zim’s random bouts of evil giggling though and was largely unaffected by this particular display. Computer had no lungs nor any capacity for respiration, but this did not prevent the mechanical voice emulator from sighing.

“This is it!” Zim shouted, toting the florescent orange pail over his head, “With this I shall be _victorious_!”

At least these spiders weren’t real and couldn’t web up any important parts of Computer’s innards.

Again.

-

It was bitterly cold outside, and in his excitement to possibly commune with spirits, Dib had forgotten his gloves. Even shoved deep in the pockets of his trench coat, his hands felt like popsicles. He hurried down the street, hoping to get to his destination soon. Though the temperature of the abandoned house probably wouldn’t be much warmer, at least being inside would protect him from the biting chill of the wind.

The sun had already set, and the moon was looking deceitfully full in the sky. Dib knew that the full moon wouldn’t actually occur until tomorrow night, as per several weather and astronomy websites had reported, but he took the bright glow as a good omen anyway. Everyone knew that there was more paranormal activity during a full moon, and, well, close enough! Plus, he could always come back tomorrow, even if that meant lugging his backpack heavy with equipment all over again.

Dib mentally ran through the items that he had packed and tried to speculate which might be the most useful. Of course he had brought staples like a thermal camera, an EMF reader, a portable radio, tarot cards (which he may have borrowed from Gaz), and a spirit board. He’d never successfully used the spirit board, since it required at least two people, but he’d always hoped if he set it out that a ghost might start moving the planchette around on its own accord, like how it happened in scary movies.

He was so caught up in his imagination that upon arrival, he failed to survey the outside of the home and its grounds before marching right up to the door. There was a dull vibrating coming up from the ground, and as Dib found the door to be unlocked, he noted that he could hear muffled voices and music. His initial spike of excitement quickly morphed into confusion because the sounds didn’t appear to be lost echoes of the undead. It sounded more like...an actual party.

Also, as Dib stepped further past the entrance, he realized that the lights of the house were on, and there was a pile of discarded coats by the door. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Dib crept forward towards the noise.

The house was definitely not owned by anyone, as the walls and floors were dilapidated and littered with graffiti and trash. Rats scurried along the baseboards, hunting for fresh meat. There were a few pieces of furniture, but they were covered in a thick layer of dust or slime or mold. The picture that was slowly forming in Dib’s mind was of a house, abandoned after being flooded by the city cesspool, then later ransacked, and now…

He turned the corner of the narrow hallway that snaked around some very structurally questionable stairs. A room opened up in front of him and confirmed his worst fears.

This was no haunted house.

“Aw, who invited the crazy freak?”

This was a party house.

“I told you we should have used a different secret code! He was bound to look into a ‘haunted house’.”

“I was just calling it what the note did. And it took him all week anyway.”

Dib walked past the arguing girls on his left to fully drink in his disappointment. Most of his classmates were milling about the room, content to loiter and hang out without the supervision of any adults. There were a few mismatched plastic chairs that seemed to have been added recently. A similar cheap plastic table held a few snacks and drinks. There was a huge old couch in the corner that looked too heavy to move that had a towel haphazardly thrown over its ruined cushions. A full-on DJ booth flanked the far wall, with none other than Gir in his dog-costume at the helm. No one seemed concerned about him.

Dib shifted his weight around between his feet and considered his options. His first instinct was to just go home, but the thought of going right back into the unforgiving sharp cold of the night made him pause. After all, the house was still old and abandoned...technically. It could still be haunted. If he found a quiet side room without as many people, then maybe he might have some luck contacting a ghost. And anyway, if Gir were here, that meant Zim would probably be around somewhere. It was only due diligence that Dib make sure the alien didn’t get up to anything weird.

Dib retraced his steps back through the hallway to look for a better area to set up. There was a bathroom—where he absolutely was not going to station himself—and two locked doors that he couldn’t get to budge. He made his way back to the entrance of the house, only to find that some sickening couple was taking advantage of the seclusion to stare queasily into each other’s eyes. Dib considered going outside and huddling near the face of the building in hopes of blocking the wind, but then he saw through the front door that Torque and Chunk and some others had started shooting off fireworks.

Rubbing at his temples with frustration and the beginning of a migraine, Dib resigned himself to returning to the main room. His last hope was to convince someone to use the spirit board with him, so that his trip out here wasn’t for nothing.

He plopped himself in the corner farthest away from where Gir was blasting music. A couple of Dib’s classmates that had been mingling in the area moved away with predictable hisses of disdain. Dib fought the urge to scream.

Instead, he unzipped his bag and rummaged around for his spirit board. As he pulled out the board, one of the corners snagged on the hairband that was wrapped around Gaz’s tarot cards. The band slipped off, and the cards spilled across the floor in front of where he set down the board. Ignoring that for a minute, he fished around for the planchette, and by the time he found it, there was someone standing in front of him.

For a second, Dib had a thrill run through him as he expected to look up and see Zim. In the moment before he saw who it actually was, he was already deeply invested in some scenario where Zim actually had an interest in using the spirit board with him. Unfortunately, the person in front of him was actually Gretchen, the girl from skool with the braces who sometimes came way too close into Dib’s personal space for him to feel comfortable.

“Can you read fortunes?” she asked, gesturing at the mess of cards on the floor between them. Dib hastily scooped up the cards—Gaz would eviscerate him slowly if anything happened to them.

“I mean technically the use of tarot cards is for the purpose of obtaining insight on one’s circumstances rather than strictly divining the future—” Dib began rattling off something he read on a cartomancy skeptic website before being interrupted by another of their peers.

“Oooh, me first!” Peyoopi cried, pushing Gretchen to the side.

“No, me!” someone else insisted, pushing their way to the front of the rapidly forming line.

Surprised by the sudden positive attention, Dib felt confused as to what to do. He didn’t really want to waste time “predicting” the future for his classmates when he could be hunting ghosts. But, he could admit to himself that with all the ruckus going on at the house for what was probably at least a week already, any spirits would have been long since driven away. Additionally, he couldn’t think of a single time when anyone had ever shown interest in anything he’d done. He almost wanted to go along with things solely to see how this would play out. For science.

He also reasoned that he would have a higher chance of coaxing someone to aid him with the spirit board if he could complete their request of having their fortune told.

“Sure.” He shrugged.

The line didn’t seem _that_ long.

-

By the time Zim made it to the house, the event was already well underway. He had been caught up looking for the googly eyes (which he hadn’t been able to find and could only hope that Gir had brought). But, Zim knew relying on Gir was like relying on—well, come to think of it, Zim couldn’t conceive of an apt comparison for anything as unreliable as his SIR unit.

However! Irrespective of that! Zim had not come unprepared. He still had his bucket of spiders, after all.

There were a few fool children outside chasing each other around with fire, which Zim hadn’t anticipated, but he managed to dodge anyway. He made it into the house in once piece with no one suspecting a thing.

Next, he made his way to the large room at the back of the house. As he entered the space, he noticed that part of his plan had already gone awry. The door from which he had planned to hang his bucket of imitation spiders was completely missing. He was sure it had been there a few days ago…

He shot a suspicious glance at Gir, who was churning out some sick beats. The little robot waved excitedly at his master, his expression unreadable, mostly because it was entirely covered in its doggy costume.

Well, no matter, Zim could simply—wait, where was his objective anyway?

Zim’s itchy stingy contact-covered eyes darted around the room until settling on a cluster of kids that he had originally ignored. It wasn’t like the Dib to be the center of attention.

But then he heard Dib’s voice from beyond the crowd, and Zim knew he had to be there. Perhaps the mob was angry and swarming him? Yes, that seemed far more likely, but…

Zim’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. Irritated, he shoved his way through the horde (which weirdly began to resemble some sort of line the more that he pushed through it) until he got to its middle. Just as he suspected, Dib was at the core of it all.

“What is this? What’s going on?” Zim demanded, flailing his arms around dramatically. The bucket in his right hand swung with abandon, and several people backed away. Zim was happy about this.

“He’s reading our fortunes!” someone exclaimed.

Zim narrowed his eyes and focused on Dib, who appeared a little flustered. The human rubbed the back of his neck before adding, “Well, it’s actually just a bunch of cards with assigned meanings, and you ask a question, and then you reflect on what it means to you and it’s supposed to give you insight on—”

Dib really was babbling incoherently.

“Eh? Mind-reading cards? Impossible! No mere cards could read the mind of the mighty Zim!”

Dib frowned. “No. What? They’re not mind-reading—”

“Fine, fine!” Zim declared loftily, as if he were doing Dib a great favor. He sat down before the boy expectantly. “Well, get on with it. Try to read my mind.”

Dib rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Ugh, whatever.”

Dib began shuffling the excessive number of cards.

“I’ve been doing four card spreads, just so you know,” Dib informed him.

“Spread all the cards you would like, _Dib_. You shall never know what _I_ am thinking,” Zim taunted.

“Right.” Dib said. “Well, you’re supposed to think of a question. Something you need advice about or—”

“Zim needs no advice!” Zim interrupted.

All of his plans for tonight had been momentarily put on hold for this. Oddly, this same situation seemed to occur a lot around Dib, and increasingly often as of late. Zim would never admit it, but there was something about this particular earth-human that made him lose all focus...or, rather, shift all focus to the earth-human.

And he didn’t have any questions that he couldn’t easily find the answers to! Between his PAK and his computer system, he had access to all the information he could ever want. Humans were not as complex as they thought they were, except for Dib of course. Dib alone was worthy of Zim’s attention, and if there was anything that Zim was remotely curious about, it was—

Dib drew the first card and placed it face up between them. The crowd around them hushed. Several pairs of eyes stared intensely at the revealed card. There was a heaviness in the atmosphere, like everyone was looking down into a casket.

Zim didn’t get _nervous_ , but there was something _unsettling_ about the whole ordeal.

The first card was The Lovers.

Dib took off his glasses and rubbed at them before putting them back on and picking up a little booklet by his side that Zim hadn’t noticed before. Dib flipped through the pages until he came to a page with a picture of the same card on the floor.

Zim assumed that the book contained the meanings for each card, as there were a lot of them, and it would be hard for the organic human brain-meats to store all of that information. He wanted to ridicule Dib about this fact, but something kept him silent. The unsettling feeling in his squeedilyspooch unwound more as Dib began to read the interpretation.

There was no way these scraps of paper could reveal his thoughts and feelings...could they?

“The Lovers, upright. Signifies love, soulmates, unions, romance, relationships, balance, and unity. This card indicates a strong bond and harmony in intimate relationships...a pair that works well together. An alternate meaning is that a decision between tough choices will need to be made. This is the best card to draw when inquiring about love and relationships, but it is also a good sign for money, career, and spirituality. For health inquiries, the Lovers card may be related to matters of the heart.”

Dib put the book down, and for a moment there was complete silence.

Zim suddenly felt very, very cold.

Then, Dib snorted with laughter. “Ha. Wow. Of all the cards.”

He seemed to be under the impression that the card was wrong. That this was all some kind of a joke. Zim laughed along with him, too loudly. He hoped it sounded convincing. With dread, he watched as Dib began to shuffle the cards again.

The crowd around them was still dead silent. Zim felt like he should say something. He felt like under any normal circumstance, he would say something. He would easily decry this charlatan practice, this fake-y human magic trickery. It was nothing but an illusion. A silly game at best. Something only feeble minds would waste their time indulging. And yet…

Zim said nothing as Dib drew the second card.

“The Two of Cups, upright.” Dib announced.

Already he was flipping through the pages of the little book. The book that was slowly translating Zim’s deepest inner secrets into audible words. He could stop all of this, get up, and walk away, and no one would be the wiser. He _should_ put an end to this nonsense.

But it was like he was watching his energy-absorbing blob pet devour Tallest Miyuki and Tallest Spork all over again. He couldn’t look away.

“Signifies partnership, attraction, close connections, and joining forces. It is one of the luckiest cards in the deck for relationships. The card suggests a new partnership or connection will be formed. This card is also a good sign for inquiries of careers, as it suggests building lasting partnerships. For money or health, the card suggests stability.”

Dib didn’t add his own commentary this time before resuming the shuffling of the cards. He didn’t need to say anything though. The silence that had surrounded them since the reading began had now been infiltrated with speculative whispers.

Dib had always threatened to put Zim on display for everyone on a dissection table. At the moment, Zim felt the table and the dissection were completely unnecessary to achieve the same result.

Zim’s PAK alerted him to increased levels of stress hormones, but he ignored the messages. There was something within him, maybe even separate from his PAK, that _needed_ to see this through.

Dib’s hands (which were usually so sure whenever he pointed aggressively at Zim, or whenever he was scribbling down notes on what he thought was some kind of paranormal evidence, or even just as he smoothed down the collar of his trench coat) were a little shaky as he placed the next card in between them.

“The High Priestess, reversed.”

It felt like the temperature of the room had dropped to below freezing, and it would have been amazing had Zim not been so transfixed on Dib’s bony fingers flipping through the little guidebook. The sounds of the whispering students around them faded out as the sound of each page being turned rang out like a projectile whistling through the air.

“Signifies repression of feelings, loss of voice, holding back. For career inquiries, you may be lacking critical information needed to move forward with a decision. For love and relationships, you may be insecure in your feelings or suspicious of someone’s motives, or you may be hiding your true intentions from someone. For health inquiries, you may find that a health issue is not being taken seriously.”

He read through all of the possible meanings, even though there was a clear theme presented through the three cards.

There was absolutely no way. It was utterly impossible. If Dib could easily read Zim’s mind with such simple cards, he would have done it much sooner! This was all just some bizarre coincidence of which Zim would never ever, _ever_ speak of _ever_ again after this was all over. After the last card was drawn…

“Death.”

The final verdict was handed down from whatever universal improbability that had lain Zim’s thoughts so carelessly across the floor for all to see.

“Signifies change, letting go, ending a relationship or beginning a new phase of a relationship, a shocking but ultimately positive transformation. In all aspects, Death suggests that it is time to let go of old ways, accept changes, and move on to something bigger and better.”

A painfully quiet moment ended the reading, which in turn ended the spell that had kept Zim from saying anything at all. Now that it was over, everyone was waiting for his judgment. Of course he couldn’t give any indication that might confirm what the cards had revealed. He knew what he had to do.

Zim leapt to his feet and cackled viciously.

“As expected! Nothing but lies! LIES!”

Dib was looking up at him with the strangest expression on his face, and Zim couldn’t identify what it meant, but it made him wholly uncomfortable. He upended the bucket of fake spiders over Dib’s head, shouted, “Victory for Zim!” then pushed his way out of the circle of kids, grabbed Gir, and jumped out of the nearest window which shattered completely as he escaped through it.

-

Dib watched Zim tear across the backyard of 1231 MacGuffin Lane with Gir tucked under his arm and the moonlight shining down on his back.

Honestly, it wasn’t the weirdest thing Zim had ever done by any means. Dib kind of felt like he had been hit by a truck though.

The crowd around him dissolved almost immediately with a lot of grumbling about the lack of music. Dib was glad that his five minutes of fame were apparently over, since he was suddenly feeling exhausted. In the corner, a mold spore broke free from the grimy old couch and began fighting one of the rats.

He didn’t want to even think about what had just happened, about what Zim’s reading could have meant, about if tarot even had any merit in revealing anything other than the innate ability to relate to overgeneralized and vague statements. Dib wouldn’t kid himself though, he knew Zim’s reading would be the _only_ thing he could think about for at least the next week.

Was it just Dib, or did the cards seem to indicate that Zim might be entering into some kind of romantic relationship soon?

And what—?

Who—?

_Ugh_.

There were still a few kids left in line, and as much as Dib wanted to go home and sleep until he forgot all about the happenings of tonight, he knew that as soon as he was on his own again he would be consumed by a hypothetical question and answer session that his brain would impose until someone carted him off to the Crazy House again.

So he figured he might as well stay a little longer and try to distract himself by doing a few more readings.

Unfortunately, the lack of music appeared to be a sign that the party was over, and a lot of the kids left. Dib spent the next two readings watching as Torque and Chunk bashed their meaty fists against the laptop left behind by Gir in an attempt to beat the music out of it. When their patience inevitably failed, Chunk picked up the laptop and stomped over to where Dib was finishing up with the line of kids interested in tarot.

“Here.” Chunk grunted, grabbing Dib’s backpack and shoving the laptop inside.

“Hey, that’s not mine!” Dib squawked.

Chunk gave him a vacuous look which reminded Dib of the time he’d accidentally raised the dead. With a shudder, Dib scooted away from the large boy and acquiesced.

“Fine, fine. I’ll take it.”

Chunk lumbered away, and Dib was left with the last person in line.

“Gretchen? I already did a reading for you though,” Dib recalled with confusion.

Gretchen smiled at him in a kind way that Dib knew he didn’t deserve. He hadn’t exactly stopped all those kids from cutting in line in front of her, even though she’d been the first one to ask him for a reading.

“Oh, I know,” Gretchen replied as she shifted closer to him.

Dib edged back a bit, as he could already hear her raspy phlegm-y breathing.

“I just thought you should do a reading for yourself.”

Behind her, the last of the kids were trickling out of the room. Dib had the idea that he might have the house all to himself—and then he would be alone to hunt for ghosts!—but the girl in front of him was giving off the vibe that she was not going to leave his side.

_There probably weren’t any ghosts in this house anyway._

Dib decided to cut his losses.

“Uh, yeah. I guess I can do that, but then I gotta go. You know, it’s getting late and all...”

Gretchen just stared at him, unblinking.

“Okay, well let’s get this over with,” Dib muttered as he picked up the cards and began shuffling.

He plucked the first card and set it on the floor in front of him.

The Lovers.

Dib gave a short huff of a laugh. Ironic how his first card was the same as Zim’s. He didn’t need to look through the guidebook to know what it meant, since Zim’s entire reading was burned quite vividly into his memory. _Maybe they were both going to have a bit of luck in the romance department_ , Dib thought to himself sarcastically.

If Gretchen cared for him to read the meanings of the cards from the guidebook, she didn’t mention it as Dib pulled his second card.

The Two of Cups.

Dib felt his stomach drop. _That was_...no, it couldn’t be.

He drew the third card and laughed out loud when he saw what it was.

The High Priestess. Reversed.

Dib laughed even harder. He had to put the deck down to clutch at his stomach and double over, wheezing. His lungs were tight in his chest and he could barely breathe through the hysterics that had overcome him. _What was the probability…?!_

There was one card left for him to choose, and he already knew what it would be. Tears ran down his face and he forced his hand to the deck and flipped over the top card.

Death.

He laughed and laughed and laughed until he was gagging for air, and every time he tried to take deep breaths to calm himself, he would just lapse into another fit of frenzied giggling. He carried on so much that even Gretchen backed away from him.

All four cards were the same. All four cards...in the exact same order. And orientation.

Was this somehow Zim’s doing??? And if it were, what was the point?

Dib looked back at the remaining deck of cards. He’d only drawn four for Zim. With all of those cards out of the deck now, what would happen if he drew a fifth for himself?

Gretchen flinched as his hands shot out and scooped up the deck again. He shuffled for a while, the cards burning in his hands, until the combination of heat and curiosity compelled him to pick one last card.

The Moon.

Something about the new card allowed him to calm down again. Gretchen was still looking at him like he was insane, but he didn’t care. He picked up the guidebook and read the meaning of the card silently to himself.

_The Moon. Signifies uncertainty, intuition, confusion, and secrets. It may signify that you are lying to yourself, or that something is not as it appears to be. The Moon can indicate anxiety towards relationships or careers. You may need to take some time to think things through before moving forward._

Dib laughed again, though with significantly less energy this time. A true sense of horror was finally sinking in.

_The probability...the probability of pulling the same set of four cards was...was...1 in 547,747,200._

Dib had a higher chance of being struck by lightning! Twice! Or winning the lottery!

Either Zim had done something to the cards— _Gaz’s cards_! Which seemed unlikely since even Zim feared the wrath of Gaz. Or...maybe there was some paranormal activity going on in this house after all. Though if that were true, what did it mean that he and Zim had the exact same reading?

“Dib?”

Dib shoved the rest of his stuff into his backpack, and jumped up hastily. “Sorry, Gretchen, gotta run!”

He then dashed off to his home in a similar erratic fashion as to how Zim had fled earlier.

-

Gaz was replaying one of her favorite walking simulator games from childhood when Dib came home from whatever business he thought he had at 1231 MacGuffin Lane. Beyond all reason, she hoped that he would just go straight to his room without bothering her. The last thing she needed was him to dump all of his _telenovela_ worthy problems on her when all she wanted was to bask in the comfort of the familiar game. The soundtrack alone was chicken soup for the soul.

“Gaz! Gaz!”

Sighing, she slipped on some headphones and cranked the volume up.

Dib appeared in her doorway moments later, waiving his arms like a lunatic and making dramatic expressions as he emphatically said something that she ignored.

If she had been listening, she would have heard something along the lines of, “I went to the haunted house to look for ghosts, but it wasn’t actually a haunted house, and kids from skool were just using that as a cover to hang out, and anyway I ended up doing tarot readings and Zim was there, and then I read his cards, and they were like all weird and mushy about love and stuff, which is ridiculous right? But then I read my own cards, and I got the same exact cards as him, and holy shit, what do you think that means? Is there something wrong with the cards? Do you think Zim did something to the cards? Did _you_ do something to the cards?!?”

Gaz spared him the briefest of glances. “Oh, yeah, my cards. You can put them on my desk.”

Dib shut his mouth for once and turned his head to look at her desk. After what seemed like a few minutes of silent staring, Gaz turned the music down and looked up to give her brother her full attention. Somehow, it was way worse when he was quiet.

“What? I didn’t do anything to the cards. I thought you didn’t even believe in tarot anyway.”

Maybe she had been listening a little.

“I don’t! I mean. I don’t think they’re magic or can predict the future or anything. I think they _could_ be used as a kind of tool for self-reflection...”

“Well, have you reflected on anything?”

Dib frowned and crossed his arms. “That’s not the point! The point is I drew the exact same four cards for myself in the _same_ order in the _same_ orientation that I did for Zim. The chances of that are so low, it’s basically impossible!”

“But _not_ impossible,” Gaz countered. She put her Game Slave 2 down. Dib’s eyes trailed to where the paused game had been temporarily placed on the bed next to her.

“I didn’t do anything to the cards,” she added after he didn’t respond.

Dib squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the skin between his eyebrows right above where his glasses rested. “I mean, I looked at the cards over and over and it doesn’t seem like there’s anything out of the ordinary about them. I guess I could take them down to the lab and make sure...But if it really was just incredible luck, then what?”

“Then I guess you have some reflecting to do. Or just ignore it and pretend like it never happened, but I doubt you’ll be able to,” Gaz deadpanned.

Dib released the vice-like grip he had on his brow to look at Gaz with confusion. “Why?”

“Because our world is full of paranormal shit. Pigboy, Old Kid, the Rat People in the mall parking garage, vampire bees, that giant fish in a bear suit that attacked Tokyo a couple years ago, Ms. Bitters, my non-corporeal powers, Dad in general...” She trailed off and sighed. “And before you say some of those have explanations, don’t even try to tell me that any of those reasons are any better than Zim’s skin condition excuse.”

Dib seemed to be understanding where she was going with this. His face was slowly turning red.

“But, none of that stuff ever keeps your attention like Zim does.”

Gaz watched her brother try to subtly distance himself from her doorway. She picked up her Game Slave 2, more than ready to begin ignoring him again.

“Maybe some reflection wouldn’t hurt,” he said, backing away more until he finally turned and fled for his room.

Gaz could only pray that the sounds of him screaming into his pillow would be inaudible from her room.

-

After a feverish night of tossing and turning, Dib got out of bed at 7 AM to turn on his computer and stare blankly at the screen. Every part of his body ached with miserable exhaustion. His backpack which was stashed under his desk felt like a black hole tugging him closer. Gir’s laptop (which was probably Zim’s laptop) was in there, and Dib couldn’t ignore it. He was annoyed with himself that he had been pressured into taking it at all. Surely Zim could have just gone back to the house to get it, once he realized he had left it. And if someone else took it, he had undoubtedly installed some kind of way to track its location. Now it was only a matter or time before he showed up at Dib’s house to take it back, assuming that Dib didn’t work up the courage to bring it over to Zim’s base first. And, as of this morning, Dib was not feeling very courageous.

He stared at the zippered teeth that were keeping his backpack closed and the laptop hidden from his sight. A dreadful thought occurred to him that if Zim installed a tracking device on the laptop, he might have also added ways for the laptop to record audio of its surroundings. Dib drew his knees up into his chest and pushed his chair away from the desk as his paranoia set in.

_Why didn’t Zim take the laptop with him when he left with Gir? Did he know Dib would take it? Had he_ _stayed up all night listening to Dib talk to himself about his embarrassing feelings?!_

Dib’s stomach did a sickening flip, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to eat breakfast until he returned the laptop and knew for sure that Zim wasn’t spying on him. Until he knew once and for all that the tarot readings last night hadn’t been the most elaborate and successful plan Zim had ever pulled off.

_And it it hadn’t been all a part of some scheme…_

Dib hugged his legs closer into his body like he was trying to shrink himself down until he was invisible. He was used to being the butt of jokes and pranks. He expected that Zim had somehow rigged the cards in order to humiliate him in front of their classmates somehow. The other possibility—that it had been a pure coincidence, or some kind of divine intervention—was _way_ scarier.

_The Lovers, the Two of Cups, the High Priestess reversed, Death._

_The Moon._

Dib had the cards and their prescribed meanings memorized by now.

He couldn’t ignore the narrative that they wove. Second guessing himself, hiding his true feelings. Change. Moving on. Joining forces. Unity.

Dib was the weird kid. The outcast. He knew how to be those things. He could handle rejection and disappointment.

_What was he supposed to do if someone returned his crush? What if Zim had orchestrated the tarot readings, not out of malicious intent, but to send a message?_

Dib felt like his head was going to explode.

Before he could get caught in another loop of rumination, Dib unfolded himself from the chair and snatched the backpack from under his desk. With any luck, Zim would just laugh in his face, and Dib could finally put all this silly wishful thinking behind him.

-

“COMPUTER! Where are the specimens I asked you to harvest? Zim does not have all day.”

Zim had to erase the events of last night from the Dib’s memory, and he had to do it quickly. He had spent all night brainstorming ideas how to go about it. He’d once tried to erase Dib’s memories by directly going into his brain, and that hadn’t gone well, so he had needed to figure out another way. Luckily for him, he was highly intelligent and creative, and he happened to have consumed a fair amount of human television with Gir. It was the soap opera Gir watched after the Angry Monkey show that had inspired him.

Humans had this flower called the ‘forget-me-not’. Zim figured he could reverse engineer the plant into a ‘forget-me-do-it’ and present the flower to Dib. He hadn’t quite developed the rest of his plan, but he was getting there! If only Computer would hurry up with acquiring those blasted flowers in the first place!!!

He smashed a bunch of keys on the console of Computer’s main interface. Of course, this side of the keypad was actually turned off, but it made him feel like he was making progress anyway. After all, Zim had to keep his hands warmed up and nimble in order to handle the flowers later.

“Master, the pizza delivery is here for youuuuu!” Gir sing-songed down the refrigerator-elevator shaft.

Zim paused in his deluge of key smashing to shout back. “What are you talking about, Gir? I didn’t order any pizza. If anyone ordered pizza, it was you.”

“PiZzA!!!1!” Gir squealed in response.

“Well, take care of it!” Zim ordered, annoyed and wondering how Gir managed to make sounds that were visual in nature.

Gir didn’t respond, and the subsequent few minutes were accompanied by the sound of Zim’s lawn gnome’s laser sounds, a car alarm, a yowling cat, and a crying baby. Zim stepped away from the console and made his way to the elevator after he heard an elephant trumpeting.

“Must I do everything myself?” he growled, loud enough for Gir to hear from wherever the SIR unit was though entirely for his own benefit.

He slipped on his disguise on the way up the elevator and grumbled until he stopped in his tracks about ten steps away from his front door.

Dib and Gir were standing in the open doorway. Dib was holding a slightly singed backpack. Gir was covered in syrup, though that was nothing unusual.

Zim froze and his PAK blared warnings into his mind about how his nervous system had suddenly gone into overdrive. Cautiously, he took a step back. He considered making a dash for the elevator that would return him to the bowels of his base where he could find somewhere to hide until the Dib left.

Two globs of syrup (or maybe honey?) dripped from Gir onto the floor before Dib cleared his throat. Zim flinched as the human unzipped the backpack in his hands.

“Um, you left this at the house last night, so I just came here to return it.”

Dib held out the laptop, and when Zim didn’t make any move towards it, he awkwardly placed it on the floor in front of his feet.

Gir then pitched forward, scooped up the laptop with his mouth, and ran out the door. Zim was unconcerned about that, as he had made the laptop for Gir’s budding music career anyway.

“Well,” Zim began while staring at the human who had yet to leave, “The laptop is returned. Your business here is complete?”

Any other time, Zim was sure that the human would have loved to barge his way further into the base and marvel at the gloriousness of Zim’s advanced Irken technology. And on any other day, Zim would have been happy to chase him out of the house and around the yard and maybe throughout the city if it were a really good day.

But obviously today there was something different in the atmosphere between them. And it obviously had to do with last night. And Dib’s stupid mind reading cards. And Zim belatedly wished that Gir had whisked him away as well with the laptop, so that he wouldn’t have to stand here and awkwardly face Dib. Who knew what he wasn’t supposed to know. What he was _never_ supposed to find out.

“I am being perfectly normal, as usual!” Zim then suddenly insisted, which he knew would definitely help the situation.

Dib looked highly uncomfortable. He wiped his sleeve across his forehead which was gross and sweaty.

“Actually, I had a question about last night...”

“Last night?” Zim crossed his arms unconsciously (in a completely non-defensive way). “What about last night? Zim barely remembers last night! What an insignificant and normal night it was, if I could remember it, which I don’t.”

To his horror, Dib took a step forward. Their eyes met, and Zim could not look away as Dib’s gaze pierced through him.

“I just wanted to know...did you do anything to the cards?”

Zim felt confused by the question. “The cards? Of course not. Zim would never waste his time with some lowly form of human illusion such as fake-y mind-reading cards.”

Surprise was evident in Dib’s expression, then he sighed and his shoulders slumped forward into his usual wretched posture as if he were relieved. “Anyway, they’re not mind-reading cards, and I never said they were. If anything, people mistake them as fortune-telling cards...”

Zim narrowed his eyes at the Dib and took a small step forward. He sensed no deception from the human, and if what he said were true, that would be a great relief to Zim as well. Of course Dib could not read his mind! Human technology was far too primitive for that sort of thing. How had Zim ever even entertained such a foolish idea?

_Dib did not know. Zim’s secret was safe._

Then Zim laughed violently, his whole body shaking to the point where he ended up on the floor. By the time he was able to catch his breath again, he felt filled with renewed energy. Perhaps he could spend the day chasing Dib around, if the Dib were also up for it.

Dib looked at him, seemingly amused. It made Zim shiver in a not entirely horrible way.

“As you know, Zim is very busy, so if that is all, Zim kindly will ask you to make your exit,” Zim declared.

Dib’s eyes flashed and he gave a small lopsided grin at the underlying challenge in Zim’s words.

“Is that right, space-boy? Why don’t you come here and make me?”

Zim sprang to his feet and then lunged after the boy, who already had a head start out the door. It was a really good day after all.

-

After thoroughly aggravating Zim’s neighbors with their antics for a few hours (Zim swore he would pay to replace the library’s windows that they had broken with the money he made from his supercomputer mining Bitcoin 24/7, and Dib was sure his dad could create a really nice cybernetic arm for that unfortunate mail carrier who had been caught in their crossfire at one point), the two ended up back at Zim’s base.

Zim was never one to let Dib “hang out” at his base, but there seemed to be some unspoken agreement between them that today was different. Besides, Dib was too tired to do any snooping around. He collapsed on Zim’s couch and was grateful when Zim (who didn’t get tired in the same way that humans did—fascinating!) brought him a glass of water.

With only halfhearted threats about dumping it on Dib, Zim eventually relinquished the glass to Dib without spilling so much as a single drop. Even Gir was handling Dib’s presence fairly well since he had ceded his usual control of the couch to watch TV from the floor.

(“This is his third favorite show,” Zim had explained to a confused Dib.

“But...the TV is off...”

“Shhhhh...”)

Zim was pretending to watch the blank screen too, though Dib caught him studying the human’s reflection more than one time.

“Can’t let my guard down. I’m sure you’re just feigning exhaustion, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike,” Zim stated without prompt.

“Obviously,” Dib agreed sarcastically, “As well as watching this awesome programming.”

As he gestured vaguely toward the TV, he thought he heard Zim snicker. It made him smile.

Zim had retrieved some small handheld electronic device to tinker with after that.

Outside, the sun was bleeding out into dusk. Dib had maneuvered himself into an angle where the last of the light wouldn’t blind him. He remembered that tonight would be the full moon, and that mental image reminded him of the last tarot card he’d pulled for himself the night before.

He still wasn’t sure what it all meant, but he was beginning to accept that it didn’t matter. Whether the cards meant anything or not, it was his life to live at his own pace. Whatever that meant for him and Zim...he would look forward to finding out.

“Eh...what’s wrong with your face, Earth-child?” Zim asked with some hesitation. Evidently, he had been distracted again. By Dib.

Dib realized he was grinning even wider than before.

“Oh, didn’t you know? This is what humans look like when they’re happy,” he responded. His tone sounded a little smug, but actually he was just very content with his current situation.

Their gazes brushed for a mere second before Zim snapped his head down to resume looking at the device in his hands. The skin on his face darkened ever so slightly. If Dib hadn’t spent literal years staring at and cataloging the color of Zim’s skin, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“Disgusting,” Zim said finally, “Do it outside.”

Dib laughed. “Ah, sorry. I’ll consider it next time.”

Zim’s computer interrupted the moment with an announcement.

“Master, I have found the specimens that you required.”

A metal arm descended from the nest of wires that comprised the ceiling of the living room. In its shiny clawed hand was a plain cardboard box, which Zim accepted with some reluctance.

Curious, Dib sat up and tried to peek at what was in the box. He didn’t need to make much effort, since in the next moment, Zim grabbed a fistful of what was in the box and presented it to the boy.

“I have no use for these anymore,” Zim shouted, shaking his fist. He wasn’t looking at Dib.

Dib took the slightly crumpled bouquet from him. “Flowers?”

“Forget-me-nots,” Zim clarified, hissing with embarrassment. “Humans enjoy the flowers, do they not?”

“Yeah, thanks—whoa!”

It always surprised Dib how strong Zim was for his tiny size. The alien had picked up the entire couch (with Dib still on it) and had ferried it to his front door, which he promptly kicked open and deposited Dib outside of.

“Well, that is enough of all that. I have very many things to do now, and I will be unable to accommodate your company. Goodnight Dib-human, and enjoy your flowers.”

Despite the politeness of the words, Zim’s voice dripped with what sounded like disapproval. Dib waited for the door to slam in his face, but it didn’t. Zim had his tiny gloved hand on the doorknob, but he appeared to be waiting for something.

“Oh. Uh. Goodnight, Zim,” Dib stuttered out, once he realized Zim was waiting for him.

Zim looked up at him. The full moon reflected in each of his too large too round eyes, which he narrowed before he shut the door gently.

Dib gripped the flowers tight to his chest as he let the moon guide him back home.

-

Zim’s magnificent plan had worked! Not in the way he had expected it to, but they rarely ever did. Still, it was worth making a note of. For future plans...Future successful plans…

“Computer! Make a note. Fake spiders.”

**Author's Note:**

> Later when they are actually a couple, Zim throws a bucket of fake spiders on Dib every year on their anniversary. It’s very sentimental for them both.


End file.
